


A Balanced Meal

by Valkirin



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: A wolf was well-fed in the writing of this fic, Battle of Five Armies Fix-It, Crack, Fix-It, Gen, Unrepentant Carnivore, Unrepentant crack, Why is Sam's character tag not Samwise Gamgee his name is great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9396074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkirin/pseuds/Valkirin
Summary: Being the story where Bilbo Baggin’s devoted pet wolf Bernard manages to bite someone from nearly every race on Middle Earth, so long as one counts the nip he managed to Lobelia’s leg, and Bernard certainly does.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _This is a very silly story I wrote because I have a lot of feelings about hobbits and Middle Earth in general but no epic ways to address them. If you're sensitive to character deaths, hop down to the end notes to see if this is not your kind of story._

It started in the Fell Winter, when Bernard’s mother just might have been brought him bits of hobbit before the she-wolf was killed. It might have ended there, had any other hobbit found him, but Bilbo’s odder traits had always been encouraged by his mother and affectionately tolerated by his father. Being a rather adventurous child with Belladonna Baggins née Took’s particular brand of excess, Bilbo cradled the limp pup under his jacket and raced home. A pragmatic hobbit would have allowed nature to serve its course or helped nature along with a swift twist of the pup’s neck. Bilbo couldn’t turn away from the den and put aside the memory of the slits of blue eyes peering tiredly at him over the cold corpses of his litter-mates. The little wolf was certainly too small to bite, he reasoned, and definitely no bigger than a pup that Farmer Maggot would raise with pride.

It took over two weeks to be discovered. Bilbo’s puppy didn’t have the energy for much more than water and small bites of Bilbo’s dinner smuggled in a napkin, and for over a week the puppy didn’t leave his little nest of blankets and soft rags near the wall of Bilbo’s room closest to the kitchen and its stove. When Bilbo and the newly-christened Bernard were found, it was because the fauntling and wolf pup had become entirely too exuberant in their playful roughhousing, and even the wildest imaginings of a young hobbit lad couldn’t explain loud yips interspersed with Bilbo’s giggling.

His father, of course, had wanted nothing to do with the idea of keeping a wolf. There was no need to kill the tiny animal, not with the winter still killing nearly all it touched, but it couldn’t stay with them. Bungo was a Baggins, through and through, and a Baggins could not countenance the insane idea of a hobbit keeping a wolf, when a gentlehobbit wouldn’t even keep a hound. Stories about elves were much different than keeping a wolf in one’s own smial. Books were the prerogative of the more scholarly sort of hobbit after all, elfish in origin or not. Wolf husbandry simply wasn’t done. 

Belladonna, however, had far different ideas of what was proper and just what could be done. She fashioned a cunning little leather collar for the wolfling, bright red so that all their neighbors could pick that wolf in particular out at a distance. All of Hobbiton was quite wary, it seemed, but as always the Gamgees were first to defend Bag End’s inhabitants. Their Hamfast would chatter away to any slightly interested party that he and Bilbo had started to teach Bernard useful tricks, like fetch and stay, and even would suffer a harness to pull at smaller stumps in the garden.

Aside from likely ingestion of bits of Bilbo’s neighbors while Bernard was a pup barely old enough to have his eyes open, and that one minor incident where a very angry young hobbit lass had aimed a kick at Bilbo, Bernard had no aggression against hobbits. The rare hobbit that would show aggression against Bilbo Baggins tended to run after just a glimpse of the massive wolf (always assumed to be a bizarre bit of gossip about a dog spread by someone who didn’t know better, as no one could imagine keeping a wolf about a respectable hobbit-hole). Belladonna had dressed the wound in the meat of Lobelia’s calf and very firmly told the fauntling that it was Bernard’s forbearance alone that would leave her with no more than pricks of white for a scar. 

Whatever the wolf had thought of the taste of hobbit, he never bit one after Lobelia. Belladonna had occasionally been heard to mutter that the young lass was far too sour for any beast to risk a second taste of hobbit. Bungo sputtered at the impropriety but Bilbo noticed that his father never quite disagreed. 

As it happened, Bernard had the chance to develop quite the palate, especially after growling threateningly at a wizard who showed up out of the blue and to say cryptic things to Bilbo, who had been peaceably smoking a pipe and scratching the little hollow behind Benard’s left ear. Gandalf avoided a nip mostly on virtue of quick reflexes that belied his aged appearances and the strategic gift of a fine beef marrow-bone.

Bilbo had apologized to Dwalin even as he fussed over the nip in the dwarrow’s bicep, and his surly guest had been gracious enough to grunt a presumable acceptance of Bilbo’s apology once Bernard had stalked back to the half-chewed bone by the fire. Bernard had very little patience for guests that brought weapons and scowls. The rest of Bilbo’s company that evening looked between the bandage on Dwalin’s upper arm and the wolf crunching directly through a cow’s thighbone. Not one visitor suggested retribution against the wolf.

Bernard accounted for one troll fully on his own, and a lucky hit from Bilbo’s thrown rocks finished the second between hobbit and wolf. The two dwarfish princes had represented themselves well against the third of the trolls, and the odd company that paraded back to camp with ponies in tow felt fully proud of their share of the trolls’ hoard taken the next day. 

Sheer numbers kept Bernard from the time to fully experience the taste of warg on first encounter, though he accounted for two. One bite was enough for the wolf to snarl at the taste of orc. It took a bit of quick work on Bilbo’s part to keep one of the Brown Wizard’s rabbits from being Bernard’s next meal, and Bilbo might have considered letting one of the Rivendell elves replace the rabbit for their hostility toward guests, but at last Elrond won him over. Bilbo’s improved good temper may or may not have been due to some excellent salad greens.

Bernard was too clever to try eating a rock giant, after a quick sniff and an investigatory lick, but he did leave urine on every one they passed. 

Bilbo couldn’t say just how much goblin Bernard had the occasion to find, as the wolf was separated from the group just as Bilbo lost sight of the dwarrows in the swarm of goblins, but Bilbo escaped his contest of riddles by a slim margin of luck and dearly missed his wolf when he was a hobbit standing alone against Azog the Defiler, and again when he was riding an eagle, though he imagined Bernard wouldn’t take well to being grasped in an eagle’s claws and wouldn’t be able to perch on the back of a flying eagle, however broad its back. 

Bilbo quite nearly hugged their gruff host when Beorn welcomed a very smug wolf to his holding, and did hug Bernard. Beorn served the company no meat, but for once the dwarrows held their tongues when goblin-made jerky appeared in their pack for the wolf’s sake. 

They were scarcely in Mirkwood long enough to sample the jerky, it seemed, as Bernard’s second meal in the great forest was very nearly an elven archer’s hand. His first had been spiders, giant spiders the wolf crunched into with a frankly terrifying enthusiasm, and Bilbo imagined that having a belly full of spiders let Bernard content himself with just a nibble at the leader of the Mirkwood fighters. 

The red-headed elf looked as amused at the insult to the male archer’s dignity as she did with the wolf himself, and Bilbo was easily coaxed to give the wolf’s name and origin to the lady. The blonde male looked about as sour as Thorin did when the two companies parted ways, leaving the red-head to get the dwarrows and their wolf and hobbit well out of their forest. 

Bilbo counseled Bernard against eating the grim Bard and was only kept from having Bernard eat the Master of Laketown because the wolf would certainly get indigestion. 

Bernard growled at all and sundry when Bilbo managed to slip into Smaug’s lair without him, temper at its peak for many reasons—Bilbo hadn’t allowed him to eat the thrush, Bilbo strictly forbade dragon-meat, Bilbo said not to eat the dwarrows barring him from following his hobbit… The wolf’s foul temper lasted well after the dragon’s death, and Bilbo couldn’t find it in himself to be angry when Bernard’s jaws clamped around Thorin’s thigh in a way that promised no mere nip. Not when Thorin had been holding Bilbo above the great height and Bilbo didn’t know if falling or being strangled was the more frightful option. The dwarrows even in the height of gold-lust could remember how Bernard crunched through bones, memory perhaps prompted by the most vicious growl Bernard had ever uttered, and knew that the flesh of a thigh and the large bone beneath would prove no hindrance, so with several vocalized curses Thorin shoved Bilbo to the safety of Bernard’s many-toothed protection even before Gandalf arrived to intervene. For his part, Bilbo threw the Arkenstone at the ridiculous king of dwarrows and stormed out of the mountain to vent some of his ire at Thranduil and Bard. Armed encampments on the doorsteps indeed, Bilbo fumed, not caring that Thranduil and Bard seemed more impressed with the wolf’s raised hackles than Bilbo's remonstrations. 

Bernard seemed to greatly enjoy the vast battle that followed, chomping through wargs and goblins and orcs alike, just as much as Bilbo hated it. Bernard was coated in blood even before tearing out Bolg’s throat even as the orc would have slain Thorin, and licked his lips at the sight of the arriving eagles even after Bilbo firmly told the wolf that there would be no chomping on the great birds. Bernard was likely consoled only because he had both Fili and Kili telling him that he was a marvelous wolf. 

In the end, despite several spirited attempts by dwarrows that were rather attached to their burglar, Bilbo Baggins departed for the Shire and stoutly refused to take more treasure than he could carry. Given that Bernard nobly suffered with a harness that allowed him to carry most of Bilbo’s possessions, that was quite a bit more than the mithril shirt and elf-made letter opener he had planned to keep. (And the ring, of course, but that bit of gold had never been a dwarf’s.) And so Bilbo Baggins returned to the Shire, where a surly Lobelia returned every last silver spoon with no more than a single huff from Bilbo’s great wolf. 

In time, as Bilbo grew far more interested in sitting at his desk than striding through the woods, Bernard allowed a second hobbit into the little hollow in his great heart that he set aside for softer things than the hunt or running swiftly through the plains or falling asleep in highly inconvenient places. Bilbo’s nephew was a very fun playmate, one of the only hobbits in the Shire to treat the gigantic wolf as if he were nothing more than an oversized puppy, and Bernard’s loyalty assured the poor little faunt that came to Bag End with dimmed eyes and a blank little face would have a large furry pillow to cry into, and then a strong furry back to ride through the gardens on better days. 

Bernard was quite pleased when his second hobbit began to smile again, and all the more pleased that the old not-man with the hat came back when his first hobbit started twitching at shadows. To Bernard’s way of thinking, it was marvelous when Bilbo told him to follow Frodo about, as Frodo now had the odd little gold ring that meant adventuring and sneaking about was at hand, and adventuring and sneaking about nearly always meant there would be far more interesting meals than sides of beef or mutton mixed in with the occasional brace of rabbit.

For the first long stretch of the journey, Bernard was rather disappointed. The black-draped things on the black once-horses smelled viler than orc, his mouth ached when he took a chunk out of one thing’s shoulder for stabbing his hobbit, he was not allowed to bite the man with them, and no amount of growling at shadows could wake Frodo. He sulked in Rivendell’s halls until Frodo woke enough to murmur something unintelligible and then slip into a sleep that didn’t reek of fear. The only good part of the bit where crowds of beings he wasn’t allowed to eat sat around talking about Frodo’s little golden ring was that Elrond remembered him and had several large bones to keep Bernard busy during the worst of the talk-too-much business.

Bernard was mildly appeased about the lack of food on the great snowy mountains when he was fully encouraged to bite a large chunk out of some great beast that dared to wrap a tentacle around his little-hobbit, and his smugness lasted through doing quite a bit of damage to a cave troll, even though it tasted as bad as especially dirty goblin. He consoled himself with knowing that he would have eaten the fire-rock thing that took the old man away, truly, but he still sulked at the lost chance and Frodo’s darkening moods so much that he very nearly missed it when a human man threatened his hobbit. 

Boromir came perilously close to being Bernard’s elevensies meal before the man abruptly returned to his senses, helped by his conscience as well as a wolf’s primal snarl cutting just as deep as the call of the Ring. Only Frodo’s hand wrapped firmly around the red leather collar kept Bernard from killing the strange gaunt creature that moved like a hobbit turned into a predator. The scent was familiar and it was not a scent Bernard linked with good events.

The rest of the journey was rather dull, as far as Bernard was concerned, because he did not like seeing his little-hobbit struggle with things that couldn’t be fixed with snarling or biting or a quick game of fetch. Frodo had a wolf for a mount for a portion of the journey, and Bernard remained dedicated to his duty in face of great temptation: he took an appreciative sniff of oliphaunt but made no move to attack the giant creatures when there was a new company of men to teach manners when dealing with hobbits.

He lost Frodo in the spider-cave, as little hobbit feet move more quickly through unstable flooring and can duck through the large strands of web. Bernard was too tangled to fully do his duty and kill the spider that seemed as large as an oliphaunt in the dark of the cave, but he did manage to rip a leg off before little-hobbit’s friend killed the spider with the little knife Bilbo had won by helping Bernard to kill a troll. Even with the great spider dead, Bernard was caught so fully in snarls of webbing that he only found Frodo again when his hobbit was thinner and more dim-eyed than ever, even than when he’d been just a little pup of a boy with the spark gone out of his eyes after losing his parents. 

In the end, down that rock causeway over the great fires where Frodo faltered, Bernard fit one last meal into his time in Middle Earth. When the foul-smelling predator attacked his little-hobbit, Bernard’s forbearance was fully exhausted, and he knocked the crazed thing off the ledge with no worry of how his claws would not grip into the stone and keep him from the magma below. His Bilbo was gone, Bernard knew that, because for years his first hobbit had barely smiled except for when Frodo drew out the bits of happiness long years had left to him, and his little Frodo wouldn’t be all that much longer for playing fetch-dinner and grand quests. He never would be again if the sneaky-ring wasn’t gone.

During the fall down toward the liquid fire, Bernard thought it had been a good life, over all, and he was very viciously satisfied that the predator-thing was falling just as swiftly. He’d not hurt little-hobbit again. 

With that thought settled in his mind, and with an ear pricked to hear that the Sam-hobbit had Frodo well in hand, Bernard had one last bit of a treat before making his way to whatever afterworld it was that would welcome stalwart wolves that had been half dog all along, not that Farmer Maggot had ever known one of his pups would grow to mate with a she-wolf. Bernard didn’t eat the foul-thing that smelled of decay and rotting fish, no, he had tasted enough sour and bitter in his life of defending two special hobbits against all comers.

In his last act before the magma took him and Sauron fell, Bernard ate the One Ring. 

He would have preferred a rabbit.

**Author's Note:**

> _Character deaths in this work: Bernard and Gollum. I didn't tag either as a major character death, given that Gollum's is canon and Bernard is an OC. If you are not having the kind of day where awesome wolves/dogs are allowed to die, you are happily encouraged to imagine a giant wolf being old!Bilbo's devoted companion at Rivendell and then sailing with him and Frodo later on._
> 
> _Comments about your favorite dog are especially welcome. My current favorite is my gorgeous German Shepherd mix who is immensely protective of her favorite person in the world, my toddler. They're best friends and it makes me happy._


End file.
